AAMC News and Leadership Announcements, 2012 September 27

Here are the highlights from the current issue:

The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday announced a new partnership: the Kidney Health Initiative (KHI). According to ASN and the FDA, the initiative “will advance scientific understanding of the patient safety and treatment implications of new and existing medical products. KHI will create a collaborative environment for all stakeholders in the kidney community to help foster development of optimum therapies for diseases that affect the kidney and the quality of life of millions of people in the United States and the rest of the world. KHI will provide a forum for scientific collaboration, dialogue with patient groups and others concerned about kidney health, intellectual partnerships and public opportunities to foster exchange about potential advances in treatment. A broadly inclusive organization, KHI members will represent patient and health professional organizations, industry, academia, and government participants.”http://tinyurl.com/bqprqd5

Wednesday’s New York Times featured an article about the growing popularity and utility of personalized animal models, or avatars. The article reported, “And while the models are mainly being used for research, companies are beginning to commercialize them for use in drug development and medical treatment as well.”http://tinyurl.com/8szkk34

Science reported on Wednesday that both the Republican and Democratic versions of the STEM immigration bill considered by the House last week would have excluded the biosciences. The exclusion was buried in classic legislative jargon. The bills failed to pass but are expected to be reconsidered either in a lame duck session or by the new Congress.http://tinyurl.com/93wkdg8

NIH on Monday announced the publication of a revised NIH Grants Policy Statement (NIHGPS, rev. 10/1/2012). NIH states that this revision is applicable to all NIH grants and cooperative agreements with budget periods beginning on or after October 1, 2012. The NIHGPS provides both up-to-date policy guidance that serves as NIH standard terms and conditions of awards for grants and cooperative agreements, and extensive guidance to individuals interested in pursuing NIH grants.http://tinyurl.com/dyel5xf

A new report from researchers at the Duke University Medical Center asserts that hospitals and health systems faced with ongoing shortages of key drugs for cancer and other diseases should develop firm rationing policies based on transparency and fairness. In an article published online Monday, Sept. 24 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the Duke team outlined a policy adopted at Duke Medical Center “that established clear-cut rules for apportioning scarce drugs using a hierarchy of clinical need and effectiveness.”http://tinyurl.com/8os2jf5http://tinyurl.com/9cwfsra

The full list of announcements is below.

—–

The University of Texas System regents on Wednesday chose Dr. Giuseppe Colasurdo as the next president of UT Health Science Center at Houston. Dr. Colasurdo, a pediatrician, joined the school’s faculty in 1995, was named chair of pediatrics in 2005 and has served as dean of the medical school since 2007. Under Texas law, the selection cannot be finalized for 30 days. He has been serving as Interim President since Dr. Larry Kaiser stepped down last April to become Senior Executive Vice President for Health Affairs at Temple.http://tinyurl.com/9twbpxr

A letter from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder to five associations, including AAMC, said that there are “troubling indications that some providers are using [electronic health records] to game the system, possibly to obtain payments to which they are not entitled.” The letter further said that “The Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies are monitoring these trends, and will take action when warranted.”http://tinyurl.com/c9g9u7z

AAMC President and CEO Dr. Darrell G. Kirch wrote a letter that appeared in Tuesday’s New York Times, commenting on a recent article about physician shortages. He discussed the efforts of medical schools to increase the number of medical school graduates. He concluded, “But many of these students will never be able to complete their training unless Congress lifts a 15-year cap on federal funding for residency training positions. The solution to training more doctors exists, but if we wait any longer, we may soon find our future doctors looking elsewhere for opportunities.”http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/opinion/a-shortage-of-doctors.html

Monday’s New York Times reported that rhetoric notwithstanding, several states with GOP governors who are strongly opposed to “Obamacare” are quietly preparing to have health exchange frameworks ready by the deadline, which arrives ten days after the election.http://tinyurl.com/bt8u869

The American Council on Education and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation honored five medical schools on Tuesday by awarding each a $250,000 grant for excellence in faculty career flexibility. Two additional institutions received $25,000 each for promising practices in the field. The Council said it “launched the medical schools awards after investigating the structural and cultural constraints for faculty career flexibility in academic medicine.” The winners of the excellence grants are: Boston University School of Medicine; Indiana University School of Medicine; Stanford University School of Medicine; University of Massachusetts Medical School; and, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The University of California, Davis School of Medicine and State University of New York Upstate Medical University were recognized for their promising practices.http://tinyurl.com/9gt8kor

Modern HealthCare reported on Thursday that “A court filing this week indicates that Steward Health Care System plans to walk away from a deal to buy a struggling hospital in Rhode Island after a nearly 16-month courtship that required lawmakers to amend the state’s hospital conversions law. The deal to acquire the 133-bed Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket would have been Steward’s first acquisition outside of Massachusetts, where the for-profit health system has snapped up six community hospitals since 2010. Landmark has been in receivership since 2008.”http://tinyurl.com/94alffr

Dr. Darrell G. Kirch’s commentary in the new issue of the AAMC Reporter is titled, “Building a Culture of Research in Medical Education: Are We There Yet?” The AAMC’s President and CEO discusses unprofessional behavior and the hidden curriculum, and highlights efforts to gather a more complete picture of the learning environments at our member institutions through recent changes in the Graduation Questionnaire (GQ).http://tinyurl.com/8lcu4xq

Thursday’s New York Times reported that John R. Reynolds, “A former chief executive of the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan has been charged with receiving about $1.4 million in illegal payments in an extortion and kickback scheme carried out between 1996 and 2007, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan.” He was also charged with conflict of interest violations. The hospital is affiliated with Weill Cornell Medical College.http://tinyurl.com/8fksjlm

The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) on Wednesday announced four new members of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP). The members are: (Chair Designate) Jeffrey R. Botkin, M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Ethics, Associate Vice President for Research, University of Utah; Thomas Eissenberg, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology and Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies; Director, Clinical Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory, Virginia Commonwealth University; Owen Garrick, M.D., M.B.A., President and CEO, Bridge Clinical Research, Inc.; and, Pilar Ossorio, J.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Law and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin-Madison.http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/index.html (right margin)

NIH on Wednesday announced that it will dedicate $11.3 million from the NIH Common Fund to support the first year of the Health Care Systems (HCS) Research Collaboratory, “which will engage health care systems as research partners in conducting large-scale clinical studies…Health care systems, which include health maintenance organizations and other large integrated care settings, see large populations of patients. By partnering with these entities, NIH will be able to conduct large-scale and more cost-effective clinical research within the settings where patients are already receiving their care.” According to the NIH announcement, “These awards establish a coordinating center that will provide national leadership and technical expertise in all aspects of research with health care systems.”http://tinyurl.com/9cpjhpq

The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday announced a new partnership: the Kidney Health Initiative (KHI). According to ASN and the FDA, the initiative “will advance scientific understanding of the patient safety and treatment implications of new and existing medical products. KHI will create a collaborative environment for all stakeholders in the kidney community to help foster development of optimum therapies for diseases that affect the kidney and the quality of life of millions of people in the United States and the rest of the world. KHI will provide a forum for scientific collaboration, dialogue with patient groups and others concerned about kidney health, intellectual partnerships and public opportunities to foster exchange about potential advances in treatment. A broadly inclusive organization, KHI members will represent patient and health professional organizations, industry, academia, and government participants.”http://tinyurl.com/bqprqd5

Wednesday’s New York Times featured an article about the growing popularity and utility of personalized animal models, or avatars. The article reported, “And while the models are mainly being used for research, companies are beginning to commercialize them for use in drug development and medical treatment as well.”http://tinyurl.com/8szkk34

Leaders of the Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation and Cleveland Foundation announced this week that each organization has committed $10 million to launch Case Western Reserve University’s campaign for a new medical education and research building. According to the school, the estimated total cost of the project would be about $50 million. Its total space will be about 160,000 square feet, “spread over a five-story structure that encourages collaboration among disciplines, faculty and students.” The university expects to locate the new building on the West Campus, a 14-acre parcel that once stood as the home of the Mt. Sinai Medical Center. The Cleveland Plain Dealer posted an editorial this week strongly supportive of the project, concluding, “Greater Cleveland philanthropists and supporters of CWRU should dig deep, recognizing this project’s potential to improve both the economic health of the region and the physical health of its inhabitants.”http://thedaily.case.edu/news/?p=10156http://tinyurl.com/99y5se3

The aging of the U.S. population will have broad economic consequences for the country, particularly for federal programs that support the elderly, and its long-term effects on all generations will be mediated by how — and how quickly — the nation responds, says a new report from the National Research Council. According to the NRC panel, “The unprecedented demographic shift in which people over age 65 make up an increasingly large percentage of the population is not a temporary phenomenon associated with the aging of the baby boom generation, but a pervasive trend that is here to stay.”http://tinyurl.com/co6uu4r

The Pew Research Center on Wednesday issued a new report on the growing level of student debt and how it is affecting families. Perhaps most disturbingly, the Pew found that “whether computed as a share of household income or assets, the relative burden of student loan debt is greatest for households in the bottom fifth of the income spectrum, even though members of such households are less likely than those in other groups to attend college in the first place.”http://tinyurl.com/cyfs5kk

The NSF’s National Science Board on Tuesday released a new report, “Diminishing Funding and Rising Expectations: Trends and Challenges for Public Research Universities.” The report expands on data included in the recent edition of Science and Engineering Indicators.http://nsf.gov/nsb/sei/companion2/index.jsp

When an earlier proposed merger of the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore failed, both institutions agreed to a new collaboration framework. On Tuesday, the two institutions announced the creation of a collaborative school of public health.http://tinyurl.com/8oryvll

Science reported on Wednesday that both the Republican and Democratic versions of the STEM immigration bill considered by the House last week would have excluded the biosciences. The exclusion was buried in classic legislative jargon. The bills failed to pass but are expected to be reconsidered either in a lame duck session or by the new Congress.http://tinyurl.com/93wkdg8

An article in Tuesday’s New York Times discussed “retained surgical items” – instruments, sponges and other items left in a patient’s body after surgery. The article reported that an estimated 4,000 such cases occur annually in the US, with sponges accounting for two-thirds of the items. The article discussed efforts to end the problem, including various technological innovations. A recent study from the University of North Carolina Department of Surgery, chaired by Dr. Anthony Meyer, found that radiofrequency detection systems as an adjunct to manual counting protocols for tracking surgical sponges can be very helpful. Dr. Meyer is a former chair of the AAMC Council of Academic Societies.http://tinyurl.com/9lytfqwhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22770865

NIH on Monday announced the publication of a revised NIH Grants Policy Statement (NIHGPS, rev. 10/1/2012). NIH states that this revision is applicable to all NIH grants and cooperative agreements with budget periods beginning on or after October 1, 2012. The NIHGPS provides both up-to-date policy guidance that serves as NIH standard terms and conditions of awards for grants and cooperative agreements, and extensive guidance to individuals interested in pursuing NIH grants.http://tinyurl.com/dyel5xf

A new report from researchers at the Duke University Medical Center asserts that hospitals and health systems faced with ongoing shortages of key drugs for cancer and other diseases should develop firm rationing policies based on transparency and fairness. In an article published online Monday, Sept. 24 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the Duke team outlined a policy adopted at Duke Medical Center “that established clear-cut rules for apportioning scarce drugs using a hierarchy of clinical need and effectiveness.”http://tinyurl.com/8os2jf5http://tinyurl.com/9cwfsra

The VA Office of Academic Affiliations has announced an initiative to expand training opportunities for mental health disciplines by up to 300 positions nationally for the 2013-14 academic year. As described in the Request for Proposals, positions may be requested either for General Outpatient Mental Health Interprofessional Teams or for Integrated Mental and Behavioral Health components of Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACTs).http://www.va.gov/oaa/RFP_MH_Initiative.asp

The Worcester Telegram and Gazette reported that “UMass Memorial Health Care said [Tuesday] it will lay off 140 of its 13,200 employees as it seeks to find $80 million in budget cuts and new revenue for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. The latest round of financial challenges comes after the region’s dominant health care system closed a $50 million shortfall for the fiscal year ending Sunday. After forecasting a $60 million surplus, officials said, they would be happy with a surplus of less than $10 million.”http://tinyurl.com/8euwpz6

The Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday, “A new study suggests that a physician’s gut feelings — a sense that something is wrong even when everything checks out in the standard clinical exam — may contain more information than he or she gives them credit for.” The article discussed a new study, published in the British Medical Journal, that focused “on two questions: What exactly is a doctor’s gut feeling? And can it help physicians identify patients who are sicker than they appear?”http://tinyurl.com/9l6o68rhttp://tinyurl.com/96tqb7d

Wing of Zock, the blog about innovation and change in medical schools and teaching hospitals, is providing a baseball-themed Health Wonk Review. The entries are a home run.http://wingofzock.org/

The current issue of Dallas’ “D Magazine” profiles Dr. Duke Samson, aka “The Most Interesting Neurosurgeon in the World.” Dr. Samson is chair of the department of neurosurgery at UT Southwestern.http://tinyurl.com/9cvn9tk

A paper published in the October issue of the American Sociological Review contends “that patient-led advocacy has created a shift in the way the U.S. government has prioritized funding for medical research, and significantly changed the way policymakers think about who benefits the most from these dollars…” The paper, “Disease Politics and Medical Research Funding: Three Ways Advocacy Shapes Policy,” was written by Rachel Kahn Best, a University of Michigan School of Public Health fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program, and analyzed data on 53 diseases over a 19-year period from 1989-2007.http://tinyurl.com/8ltkyg6

Beaumont Health Systems on Tuesday announced plans to build an $18 million, 80,000-square-foot neuroscience center on its Royal Oak campus. According to the Detroit News, “Set to be completed in November 2013, the three-story structure will help Beaumont consolidate its neurological services and make more room in its medical offices for students of Oakland University’s School of Medicine, which Beaumont helped start last year.”http://tinyurl.com/8v5qu9o

Mildred MG Olivier, MD, has been appointed to the position of Assistant Dean for Diversity at the Chicago Medical School, one of five schools at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago, IL. Dr. Olivier, a board certified ophthalmologist, was a key member of the Task Force on Haiti Recovery following Haiti’s earthquake in 2010 and recently participated in the National Hispanic Medical Association’s White House Briefing on Latino Health Policy. Dr. Olivier has held leadership roles in professional and nonprofit organizations, including the Women and Diversity Committee at the Association for Vision and Research in Ophthalmology, American Medical Association’s Education and Training Committee on the Commission to End Health Disparities, Prevent Blindness America, and the American Glaucoma Society, to name a few. She is president-elect for 2013 of Women in Ophthalmology, and is slated to join the board of trustees of the American Academy of Ophthalmology later this year.

Emory University has named Gregory S. Martin, MD, MSc, as director of the Center for Health Discovery and Well Being. The center is a component of the Emory-Georgia Tech Predictive Health Institute. Dr. Martin is an associate professor of medicine in Emory University School of Medicine and associate division director for critical care in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care. The Center for Health Discovery and Well Being, located at Emory’s Midtown campus, “combines an interdisciplinary research core with a clinical testing ground for interventions based on predictive biomarkers of health, health risk and prognosis aimed at keeping people healthy.”http://tinyurl.com/8j45g6b

Nancy Roderer, director of the Welch Medical Library and the Division of Health Sciences Informatics (DHSI), will retire, effective January 15, 2013. Also a professor in the Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Ms. Roderer has been at Johns Hopkins since 2000.

Henry Ford Health System announced that Dr. John Popovich has been appointed executive vice president and chief medical officer for the health system. Dr. Bill Conway, has been named interim executive vice president and CEO of the medical group. Both positions were previously held by Dr. Mark Kelley, who is retiring as EVP and CMO of the health system and CEO of the Henry Ford Medical Group at the end of the year.

Dr. John Galland retired last week as the Director of Division of Education and Integrity (DEI) within the HHS Office of Research Integerity. Dr. Galland joined ORI in March 2009, having earlier directed the U.C. Davis Laboratory Management Institute which incorporated an innovative method for training scientists on administering a successful lab environment.http://tinyurl.com/92j4aoy

Mary Klotman, MD, chair of the Duke University Medical Center’s Department of Medicine, recently announced the selection of Christopher O’Connor, MD, as chief of the Division of Cardiology, a role he has filled in an acting capacity since July 2010.http://tinyurl.com/99qarum

The Lakeland (Florida) Ledger reported on Thursday that “Lakeland Regional Medical Center’s Elaine Thompson will be chief executive officer of the new USF Health System, while retaining her position as president and CEO for the hospital and its parent company. The USF Health System, a new alliance between USF Health and Lakeland Regional Health System, parent company of LRMC, is designed to let USF create stronger partnerships with hospitals and physician groups.” The Tampa Bay Tribune on Monday profiles Dr. Stephen Klasko, CEO of USF Health and dean of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, and discussed initiatives he is leading that are transforming care in parts of Florida.http://tinyurl.com/9c59wt5http://tinyurl.com/93pz7hm

Claire Pomeroy, MD, MBA, chief executive officer, UC Davis Health System, vice chancellor for human health sciences, and dean of the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis, was elected chair of the board of directors of the Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC) at its annual meeting held September 19-21 in San Francisco, California. Harold L. Paz, MD, MS, chief executive officer, Penn State Hershey Medical Center and Health System, Penn State’s senior vice president for health affairs, and dean of Penn State College of Medicine, was elected to the position of chair-elect of the AAHC Board.http://tinyurl.com/cyqaxwk

Stanford University Medical Center has announced that it is renaming its Department of Anesthesia to the Department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Perioperative Medicine.http://deansnewsletter.stanford.edu/#4

Leonardo J. Lozada, M.D., MBA, has been appointed chief physician executive for Saint Luke’s Health System in Kansas City, Missouri. He will join the health system on Nov. 12 and succeeds George Pagels, M.D., who announced his retirement earlier this year. Dr. Lozada is currently the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.http://tinyurl.com/c3ayamb

Correction: An article cited from the St. Louis Post Dispatch about learning opportunities at BJC HealthCare contained an incorrect number of beds at the system’s 13 hospitals. The paper’s correction states there are actually 3,400 staffed beds in BJCs hospitals.http://tinyurl.com/8npfsao

Tony Mazzaschi
AAMC

PS: Feel free to email <cas@aamc.org> if you have a problem accessing any article or resource mentioned in this summary. Also, have colleagues email <cas@aamc.org> if they would like to receive these news postings. We also welcome news tips and corrections.

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